Topic: Breaking the back of North Korea

North Korea has long posed a very viable threat to South Korea and the Region.

But here is one disadvatange that comes into play.

Apart from brief barrages and forays into the Southern Part of the Peninsula, mainly by small special forces groups.

Nork Korea can not theoreticly take the south by force, based on the assupmtion it would quickly exhaust it's supply of fuel, food and then dwindle it's various ammuntion reserves before it could secure any ground south of the DMZ let alone begin an occupation.

This would leave stranded behind the DMZ large immbobilzed contingents of troops (primarly ground forces, since this is a large portion of NK's military compisition) to be either surrounded or captured by either the South's armed forces or then would be arriving international forces as well.

North Korea has long made bold claims to reunification by force, but unless they plan to all walk to Seoul, it just doen't seem viable.

Any thoughts on major supply and support problems with NK's oversized armed forces are gladly encoraged and welcome.

Yo,

September 18th, 2011

03USMC

CoM would be the one to answer this. Don't discount the DPRK crazy in the mix.

September 18th, 2011

Yossarian

I understand that the North has shown an ideology and dedication to such that is on par with Al Qaeda in terms of commitment.

Voluntary execution for failing to achieve an objective is an example of this.

But, the thing I am referencing is yea, they have fields of quasi outdated tanks ( I say quasi due to the unkown capabilities of thier newest MBT) and fighting vehicles.

And an dedicated but out classed and under trianed airforce and neglected navy, but even with an Mass Soviet style amor and artillery driven spearheads over the DMZ,

How long could they go? They can't train very much in manuever as to preserve fuel for potential war, problems could arise and waste prescious fuel and food reserves due to miscommunication.

Yes, abosultely they have many many die hard state minded people in their ranks, but Ideology won't fill gas tanks, and won't put out three meals a day.

All the while in such a conflict the South would be mobilizing and retaliating with much less of a supply problem, and the U.S. (if not an handful of western allies) would be on the way.

All in all, this seems to be a Chinese Diplomatic nightmare, being as anyone could assume who would be asking them for handouts in terms of fuel and rations for their dwindling reserves.

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September 18th, 2011

A Can of Man

Right now no one really believes the North Koreans can take South Korea by force, not even the North Koreans.
Their ace in the hole the past twenty years has been its ability to launch a massive artillery barrage against Seoul. The death toll from such an event would reach up to a million in the opening 24 hours alone.
That's the main problem.
As for the small scale attacks they conduct against South Korea, it's mostly designed to influence South Korean politics. If the South Korean government is not being as cooperative as the North Koreans would like, they launch an attack to try to turn public opinion against the party that is currently in power.
Since North Korea cannot take South Korea by force unless the Chinese showed up with total commitment (which isn't very likely, but not impossible), their strategy has been a political one and they were for a while very successful.

As for dedication, you are actually wrong. That is very old information.

September 18th, 2011

Yossarian

It baffles me why they would design and attempt to maintain such an massive military with no clear purpose?

They cannot effectively take the South,

They cannot effectively project power,

They have aging doctrine (in terms of mechinized manuever, some other doctrines they may use are timeless) and aging equiptment,

They do not seem overly concerned with the long term degradition that comes with fielding an overly large army, in terms quality of troops and equiptment, let alone its effects on the populace.

They have very little combat experiance outside of incursions and brief attacks on the South in the past 50 years.

(Aside from a sqaudron of Fighters sent to protect Cairo in the Yom Kippur War in 1973.)

I can understand somewhat if they really want to maintain an Iron grip on their people, but such and unwieldy and unnessary armed forces takes valuable resources away from a smaller nimbler and more capable regionally focused military models that many countries use around the world.

Meaning such as an defensive force.

I guess I am saying I do not understand the NK mindset and mentality, especially the oppressive ruling regime.

September 19th, 2011

A Can of Man

North Korea maintains a large army mostly as a means to defend itself from foreign powers. They have been very successful in this objective as no one has invaded them despite pissing off everyone in their neighborhood to no small degree.

Smaller, nimbler armies are great if you want to deploy them overseas to secure small areas or small objectives. For defense against a full scale invasion, they are rather ineffective, just as the Georgians demonstrated when the Russians showed up.
South Korea maintains a large military in comparison to its population because its primary objective is to defend South Korea from North Korea. If South Korea were to go all European with its military, the sheer mass of the North Korea military would overrun it.

You have to forget about the things the press like to peddle about North Korea. There is a logic behind just about everything they do.

Never underestimate your enemy.

September 19th, 2011

Yossarian

Most definately,

One strong point they seem to have on their side, is what I truely think is that any western incursion into the North from any direction would result is such a massive causilty rate, that the fact of this alone can be the biggest deterent from an premptive means of defusing the threat they can pose.

A large idealogically focused military force, a fortified and well known (in the case of NK) fight on home ground, can then allow their massive infantry focused army can wreck havoc on any military incursion North of the DMZ.

But, they do seem to lack the ability to launch a meaningful offensive militaryly. Yes they can attack the South's captial and wreck havoc with special warefare units, but as for large scale invasive operations to go toe to toe in manuver warefare with it's potential adversaries. I feel they would just run out of gas.

And putting a massive amount of troops over the DMZ, those guys would get hungry after maybe a few bitter months of fighting.

Any military action on a large scale in the region would not surely be short and sweet, that is almost certain.